PRESSURE mounted today for Trade Secretary Liz Truss to resign after her department approved a series of arms sales to Saudi Arabia in breach of a court ruling.

Ms Truss apologised after her department breached the court of appeal judgement in June calling for the suspension of export licence awards for material that could be used in the conflict in Yemen.

A total of 183 licences for exports to Saudi Arabia and its coalition partners has been made since the ruling, according to Ms Truss in a letter to the Commons arms export controls committee on Monday.

Ms Truss said the Department for International Trade was in the process of revoking the licences as “a matter of urgency” and apologised.

Labour’s shadow trade secretary Barry Gardiner demanded that Ms Truss provide a full account of “why her department failed so miserably.”

He said: “If she cannot control her department, obey the law and do what is morally right, she should resign.

“Yet again it appears there is one law for Conservative ministers and another for everyone else.

“The department has failed to conduct proper assessments and essential information is not being relayed between government departments.”

Mr Gardiner called for the immediate suspension of all arms sales to Saudi Arabia and warned that the British public “do not want to be complicit in the fuelling of the humanitarian crisis in Yemen.

“Thousands of people have been killed in this war, and it is staggering that the Trade Secretary thinks an apology will get her off the hook.”